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The Awka constitutional absurdities By The high drama surrounding the purported ‘resignation’ last month of the governor of Anambra state, Mr. Chris Ngige, may someday find its way into the Guinness Book of Records, simply for its manifest absurdity, unmitigated anarchism and unprecedented banality. It is clearly a strange and frightening development in the annals of the nation’s constitutional process. Viewed from all possible perspectives, it is bizarre.
No doubt, disaster-prone Nigeria has already accumulated a catalogue of unconstitutional digressions in her short life, from forceful and bloody military usurpations of the legal order to ‘elected’ civilians’ unmitigated abuses of the constitutional processes. But nothing of this inverted Machiavellian dimension has however been previously seen or heard of or even dimly contemplated in the bumpy, slippery and dicey sojourn of the Nigerian nation. Surely, historians, living and yet unborn, are going to have a field-day trying to unravel the ethical orientation, the mental state and the psychological make-up of the dramatis personae in the plot that has been teasingly playing itself out in Anambra State.
Call it a coup or a forceful usurpation of constitutional power by anarchy-driven people who are totally indifferent to the lawful prescriptions of the national constitution, you would not be wrong; call it a drama cast, full of top Mafioso desperados as well as lowly street-corner hoodlums, you would not be wrong either; and call it the acts of people obsessed with a suicidal angling for legal and political attention, you would also not be wrong. You would however be damned wrong if you ever attempt to locate the obscene Awka drama within a rational legitimate process because what took place was a clear confirmation of the dominant ideology in the country today – unlimited anarchic possibilities!
The politics of Anambra State, more appropriately, ‘container politics’, is one based on a cash-and-carry commercial matrix in which a single mogul, a certain Mr. Uba, had bought off the political machinery of the state and then expected the government to function more like a personal Plc or a private ATM, than the type intended by Abraham Lincoln when he postulated on the concept of democracy as the government of the people by the people for the people.
For Mr. Uba, the ‘Godfather’, the government is just another container for immediate retail while Gov. Chris Ngige is just the cashier hired personally by the CEO, Uba. Of course, it is the one who hires who also fires. Uba, na you biko!
It is interesting to note that the three principal characters in the ignoble home video, skilfully shot in Anambra Technicolour, bear the curious nomenclature of Chris. The ‘God-father’ and also the brain behind the coup attempt, incidentally is called Chris (Uba), the puppet governor who he installed and now wanted to illegally dethrone is also a Chris (Ngige), while the usurper-turned deputy is yet another Chris (Udeh): One Chris unlawfully taking over from another Chris on the orders of yet a bigger Chris!
The nation has been rudely jolted from its complacency, from an asinine mental attitude that is rooted in the mistaken belief that democracy has come to stay. What a tragic error. It is even foolhardy to expect that just by going through the motions of electioneering and the installation of presidents and governors that all should be well.
We should be very careful how we misuse our democracy or how we unwittingly allow miscreants to abuse it. Either way, we all lose. We can promptly forfeit our new democracy within a twinkle of an eye if care is not taken. And that is why the incident that took place in Anambra State must be taken for what it is: a treasonably felony and a coup attempt, no more no less.
There is therefore no decent option open to the Federal government and the government of Anambra State other than to swing into action immediately and bring the culprits to book. The Attorney General of the Federation should start off by arraigning all those involved in the political crime and make a deterring example out of them by an open prosecution.
There has been strong public apprehension that the government might want to avoid the reality of the situation and idiosyncratically treat the matter as the domestic affairs of the PDP, the political party to which all the parties crimis belong.
The most lawful mandate of the government is to defend democracy according to the constitution, and the three ‘Chrises’ and their collaborators have just violated the substratum of that juridical order. Failing to act now, and decisively too, is to invite yet other more daring rascals to assault the system and probably overwhelm it. Then, it would be too late.
While the government shilly-shally, let us not forget that what it takes for anarchy to fester in society is to fail to apply the law if and when violated.
And at a time when the government of Nigeria is justly spearheading a robust continental response to the aberrational military coup in Sao Tome and Principe, we cannot afford to ignore those who have just violated our own constitution right under our nose, no matter their status and connections. To do so is to court disaster down the line. And as the saying goes, “the only reason why baby snakes are promptly killed is to prevent them from reaching adulthood when they would become unstoppably deadly”. Long lives Nigeria!!!
August 2003
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